On a lazy Sunday morning, a popular gastro-pub in Bengaluru’s central business district, known for its indulgent brunches accompanied by carefully created cocktails, sees only a few families and friends trickle in. The grand bar is deserted. The night before, it was even worse. Owners of pubs and liquor shops within 500 metres of a highway, affected by the ban on sale of liquor, are frustrated over the delay in the process of denotifying stretches of national highways passing through the city.
“This move is imminent, but we don’t understand why it is taking so long to denotify these roads. The delay is costing not just the affected establishments, but also the State exchequer every day. If the denotification does not happen soon, many establishments will have to shut down as they may not be able to move to new locations, given that it is a very expensive alternative. This will also mean a huge job loss,” said Collin Timms, managing director, Pecos.
Ashish Kothare, director of Le Rock on Brigade Road, and committee member of the National Restaurant Association of India, said, “The government is sitting on a decision it should have made years ago.”
Expressing a similar sentiment, G. Honnagiri Gowda, president of the Karnataka Wine Merchants’ Association, said he hopes the denotification of highways running through the heart of the city takes place at the earliest.
